12 minute read
DAVID GIFFELS EXPLORES OHIO
Buchtel High School and University of Akron graduate. His regular guests were children, often representing Girl Scout or Boy Scout troops. He also hosted Jungle Larry, an animal act from Chippewa Lake Park in Medina County.
In 1965, the station began transmitting in color and broadcasting University of Akron football and basketball games. In 1967, it switched over to Channel 23. Programming continued to be locally focused with such shows as Sports View and Civic Forum of the Air. The station broadcast in a 60-mile radius around Akron. Many Cleveland news anchors received their training at WAKR-TV including recognizable names Eric Mansfield and Mark Nolan. Former CNN Newsroom host Carol Costello got her start at WAKRTV too.
Advertisement
In an effort to clarify its identity from Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS, WAKR-TV changed its call letters to WAKC in 1986. In 1993, ValueVision bought the station. Three years after that, Paxson Communication purchased it. The new owners immediately dropped all local programming, ended the station’s ABC affiliation, and moved the operation to Warrensville Heights. That marked the official end of Akron’s one and only TV station.
The former theater and TV studio passed to a new owner in 1997, Good Shepherd Baptist Church. The church moved to a new location on South Hawkins Avenue around 2015.
Today, 853 Copley Rd. is for sale. It is in a severe state of disrepair. The Howard Hanna listing states, “Don’t miss this opportunity to rehab this historic building (former WAKR [TV] station) or demo the building and build to suit... Sold as is, building needs lots of work. Much of the value is in the land.”
While that may be true in the real estate context, there is more value to 853 Copley Rd. than the land. The old theater that hosted regional celebrities and brought local TV to almost a million Akron area homes is an important landmark of Northeast Ohio’s media heritage.
// Charlotte Gintert is an archaeologist and a photographer. You can check out her photos at www. capturedglimpses.com and follow her on Instagram at @capturedglimpses. She encourages everyone to keep on wearing masks and washing hands!
David Giffels wanders Ohio to understand the U.S.
REPORTING AND WRITING BY NAHLA BENDEFAA
An annual festival in a city recovering from a mass shooting. A small locally owned bookstore. A craft brewery set in an old funeral home. Abandoned malls all across the state. These are only some of the places that David Giffels visits in his new book Barnstorming Ohio to Understand America as he presents an insider’s look into Ohio communities.
David Giffels released his sixth book on Aug. 25. A lifelong Akronite, David traveled around the state of Ohio between March 2019 and March 2020 to get a sense of what it really means to be American at the dawn of the 2020 presidential election.
He describes this book as the culmination of his previous works and the authority they have given him over Ohio as a subject — including books about the rubber industry and Devo and The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches from the Rust Belt.
“My last book came out in 2018 and I was casting about for a new idea. My main goal was to get away from the ‘Ohio guy pigeonhole’ that I seemed to have gotten myself in,” says David, “Lo and behold, I wrote a book with Ohio in the title — probably the most Ohio book I have written.”
Ohio offers a distinctive look into American politics and society at this time. In fact, out of the last 31 presidential elections, Ohio aligned itself with the winning campaign in 29 of them. Additionally, no Republican has ever won the presidential election without winning Ohio.
“We’re in a moment where, you know, we can’t not write about the condition of the country,” says David, “It just seemed like Ohio is at the center of a lot of things. It’s always a reliable reflection of the national story and psyche.”
David drew inspiration for this book not only from the broader state of the country but also from a deep concern over the future that young people in the United States will face, particularly his children, to whom he dedicated the book.
The writing process was particularly intense for David, he says. Barnstorming Ohio is based around Ohioan cities and regions that David deemed reflective of the national story and represented the themes that he wanted to address. The travels he undertook around the state were marked by the breaking news, such as the Lordstown plant closing, Tim Ryan’s brief bid for the Democratic nomination for president, and the 2019 mass shooting in Dayton.
“Some of it was following things as they were happening, and some of it was going places that I knew I wanted to write about,” says David, “It was exciting. I was a daily journalist for a long time. There are some things I don’t miss about deadlines and reacting in the moment. But I liked doing the journalistic work. Even though a lot of these things were tragic, I liked being able to go to where things David’s travels took him through what he describes as the five Ohios —Northeast, Northwest, Central, Southwest, and Southeast — each reflecting different aspects of American society. Having worked on a similar, albeit less extensive, project in the past, David had a chance to deepen his understanding of certain aspects of the Ohioan community, such as the farming culture in the western part of the state.
“When I revised the book, I kind of deepened this question. It seemed to be on the mind of everybody and everything in the book. ‘Who will listen to me? And what do they want in return?’” says David.
The question is not only that of politicians and voters, but also of the whole state. Ohio is often misunderstood and forgotten, three years out of four until it is time for a presidential election. Then statisticians and reporters come to find out what this swing state is saying. In reality, Ohio is the tales of Leonte Cooper, an Akron native and political science student at The Ohio State University; Llallan Fowler, a bookstore owner in Mansfield; Bret Davis, a sixth-generation farmer in Delaware; Lacie Cheuvront, a single mother and activist from Hillard; and countless others who put a face to the narratives of what it means to be an Ohioan and American in these times.
By providing an Ohioan’s view on these questions, David presents a human, empathetic and holistic take on the stories that reflect the state’s, and by extension America’s, identity.
‘Barnstorming Ohio to Understand America’ is available at most local independent bookstores and national retailers. Limited signed bookplates are available at The Learned Owl in Hudson and Main Street Books in Mansfield.
// Nahla Bendefaa is a writer, photographer and content creator from Akron by way of Kenitra, Morocco. She enjoys re-watching Friday Night Lights, painting and confusing Spotify’s algorithm while making her way through a seemingly never-ending tea collection.
Brian Lisik’s ‘Gudbye Stoopid Whirled’ wasn’t supposed to be about the pandemic — but it is
REPORTING AND WRITING BY KARLA TIPTON
It’s not the way things were supposed to go. Brian Lisik’s new album Gudbye Stoopid Whirled, his first since 2015, was supposed to come out in the spring.
“By March we’re ramping up the publicity campaign, and the record’s going to come out in May. We’re going to hit the road and play a few different states here and there, line some things up for a tour, and then whammo,” Brian says.
The rest is history.
But the songs and even the title existed pre-COVID-19.
“The album was titled months before the pandemic; it was not intended at all to be prophetic,” Brian says. “If COVID-19 has done anything, it’s given me a better story to tell about these songs. My tongue’s in my cheek as I say this — they’re all about COVID, but none of them are.”
The record, a cross between power pop and folky alternative, was pushed back to an Oct. 2 release. A livestream replaced the release party. a live CD show, but this is like being on Austin City Limits.”
Backing him up will be bassist Steve Norgrove, guitarist Robb Myers and drummer Martyn Flunoy of the seminal Akron Sound band, The Bizarros.
“I brought Steve out of retirement for one hour of livestream,” Brian says. His longtime writing partner had transitioned into producing full time, after building Bass Mint Studio, where Gudbye Stoopid Whirled was recorded.
Legendary producer and Canton resident Don Dixon (R.E.M., Counting Crows, Smithereens, Gin Blossoms) came in to mix the songs.
“Steve and I had some good recordings, but Don really put it over the edge,” Brian says. “He really took it from ‘hey, this is a pretty good record’ to ‘wow, this is a really good record.’”
Brian’s band, The Unfortunates, disbanded in 2019. The new 10-song, 33-minute record has a strippeddown basement vibe. “There’s barely three instruments on most of the stuff,” Brian says.
The lyrics fall against a backdrop of crunchy guitar-powered melodies that stick in your head. Drummer/guitarist Chad Jenson of Hillbilly Savant contributed to the album’s style. The songs’ subject matter could easily have been rooted in pandemic angst.
“All the songs are about isolation and irrelevance and trying to find your place in the world, about getting old and switching gears,” Brian says. “I could be very opportunistic and say they’re all about COVID. Thank you, pandemic, for making me relevant again.”
On Gudbye Stooped Whirled, lyrical topics run the gamut from sex-as-selfmedication (“Mindship”); addiction and suicide (“Death of a Broken Heart”); and the obsession with chasing fame in the social media age (“Junior High School”).
While the words are dark, the music is not. The album builds classic sounds into a fresh, concise package of hummable tunes.
Brian cites diverse influences, from Big Star (think the That ‘70s Show theme song), John Mellencamp and the Replacements, country influences such as Waylon Jennings, as well as ‘60s girl groups. Closerto-home inspiration comes from the Raspberries and Cleveland’s Peter Laughner of Rocket From The Tombs fame.
Now living in Canton, Brian grew up in Ellet, near the border with Goodyear Heights. “You had kids whose dads were machinists and long-distance truck drivers on the normal side of Ellet, and then all our dads worked in the rubber shops. If there was a seedy side, that was us.”
As far as the future of music, he is a little worried.
“I’ve heard these horror stories that if this goes another two months that 90% of the clubs in Nashville are going to close. I can’t get my head around that,” he says. “You wonder how much of it is permanent, how much of it’s not.”
While Brian embraces new methods of getting his music out, he says he’s “hopeful that one of these days that Zoom meetings and livestream shows go the way of the Furby.”
He laughs. “What I need to find out is how they did livestreams in 1918.”
// A native of Barberton, Karla Tipton earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Kent State University and spent 14 years as a staff reporter and editor at the Antelope Valley Press in California before returning home. She is the author of two time travel romantic fantasy novels. She keeps busy writing, working in the IT field, playing rock guitar, photographing urban settings and enjoying the local arts and music scene.
Muralist Caleb Aronhalt brings ‘minions’ to surprising places
REPORTING AND WRITING BY ZAÏRÉ TALON DANIELS
Public artwork has historically been understood as a way for humans to beautify and place value on the landscapes around us. Art helps the community remember the past and build a launch point to the future. Graffiti, on the other hand, is typically associated with vandalism and urban decay.
Local artist Caleb Aronhalt has a different opinion.
Aronhalt was commissioned by Summit Metro Parks to paint a mural on its walking path that is located at the underpass of Kenmore Boulevard and the Towpath beside Summit Lake. Although the Towpath’s bridge across Summit Lake is widely beloved, the underpass is, well, an underpass.
Aronhalt is not new to this task — he has worked on several other murals in the city, following a unique motif of characterized creatures he calls his “minions.”
“Painting murals is one of those hobbies that makes me feel alive,” Aronhalt says.
Aronhalt got his start in the arts at Firestone High School under the leadership of his teacher James Dauphin. “He pushed me and allowed me the freedom to experiment and grow with my art,” Aronhalt says.
Aronhalt has worked with mixed media, screen printing and spray paint.
“[Graffiti] and cartoons have been a huge inspiration for me,” says Aronhalt. “There’s a huge difference between vandalism and graffiti. Putting art in public rejuvenates the community. Bright colors bring people, and art on walls is better than ad space.”
Aronhalt’s 27-figure mural made its debut at the end of August. He also painted murals at the north and south corners of Kenmore Blvd and 15th Street and on the side of Kenmore Automotive at 1554 Kenmore Boulevard.
You can find more of Caleb’s work on Instagram @caleb_aronhalt_art .
// Zaïré Talon Daniels is a recent graduate of the University of Akron and a summer intern at The Devil Strip.
Photos: Photos by Andy Harris. Used with permission from Caleb Aronhalt.
The very best care – now under one roof.
Visit our new health center in Boston Heights.
Every child is unique. Their care should be too. At our new health center, you’ll find a wide range of pediatric offerings, from wellness visits to specialized care – all in one convenient location.
